Casualties
by love-fool
Summary: I just sit on the bench. Idly. I guess that's the story of my life. I'm just the observer. I'm just the lone soldier who watches all of this warfare go on around him."


A/N: So, I honestly have no idea where this came from. This just came pouring out of me. I have a feeling there are a bunch of fics like this, so this is just my take on it and my version of it all. Obviously, I don't own Degrassi.

Rated T for a dropping of the "F" bomb and thematic elements.

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Adults like to say that after you go through adolescence, it's all better from there on out.

I'm hoping that it isn't one of those lies they like to tell you, nestled between the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy.

Directly, not that much has happened to me. I guess you could say I'm one of the lucky ones. Everyone else is spinning out of control and I'm just sitting there. I'm at the carnival, watching the roller coaster going to and fro, up and down, upside down and right side up. I know people who go on the roller coaster. They tell me what it's like. Sometimes. Other times, I'm just left to draw the conclusions by watching people get off. Some people throw up right after the ride, unable to go on any other. Some people pump their fist up in the air, yelling "Man, that was awesome!" I just sit on the bench. Idly. I guess that's the story of my life. I'm just the observer. I'm just the lone soldier who watches all of this warfare go on around him.

It's not like I want some sort of life full of adolescent turmoil. I mean, seriously. Boredly, I'd catch a glimpse of those shows that Manny would drag on and on about. It wasn't like wanted to sit and watch shows about who stole whose boyfriend and the love triangle of the week. But it's jealousy almost, you know? Not that I would ever admit to having camped out in front of my TV and catch some nameless teen drama out of total boredom. It'd just give people more ammo to make fun of me for which is honestly the last thing I need. Stupidly, I have this jealousy of these fictional characters who have these movie star looks and these intricate plot lines. It's exciting also known as the complete antithesis of my life. I'm just just the guy who gets his name at the end credits. I'm merely a costar, the guy who gets maybe one or two line per episode.

There has been some turmoil though. The adults, they say it's going to get better. I don't know how it gets better from this point on. Maybe it hurts a little less with every day that goes by. There's this aching pain though. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm living. My life is just a cheap imitation of what my life used to be. I just don't see improvements anytime soon. Sure, I could win a million dollars. Sure by some sort of fluke, I could wind up dating some Brazilian super model. All of the prizes in the world can't make me ignore what's happened. I understand why people self medicate. I can't imagine myself doing it practically ever but I understand it. For a fleeting moment, they get to erase everything horrible in their life. After that moment falls to pieces, everything's still there. It's that stain on a shirt that's not ever going to come out. You can put on that supposed miracle worker of a stain solution. You can put it through the washer time and time again. Hell, you can even bleach. One way or another though, it's still going to be there.

The rise and fall of the Rick Murray empire is something that's still fresh in my mind. I heard the stories. I saw the glares that Ashley gave me when I got home and she just knew that I'd spent my lunch hanging out and talking. We were both outsiders, obviously for different reasons. I looked at Rick and I just didn't see the guy that Ashley and her friends saw. I just couldn't see that Rick was the guy who had viciously put Teri into a coma. I guess that's how girls fall into that trap, huh? But Rick was funny. Rick was intelligent. Rick was a guy who I could see myself in. Misunderstood. Tortured. Lonely.

It's mildly pathetic when I tell people that at the end of the day, I'm used to the ridicule. I'm used to getting shoved into a locker. I'm used to the incessant name calling. It's just second nature. I've grown to deal with it. After a while, it started affecting me less and less. It was a song that no longer had its effect on me after being on repeat for an extended amount of time. But I've always held onto that little sliver of hope. I just had to wait it out. I mean, obviously in college, I'm not going to get my gym clothes stolen out of my locker. I've always relied on that stupid sliver of hope. It was enough for me. But Rick...Rick wanted glory. Rick wanted respect. Rick wanted everything. Instead, Rick got humiliation. Rick got ridicule. Rick got nothing. I'm not even close to understanding how the world works but seriously? Rick made one mistake with Teri. He didn't deserve that kind of poetic justice.

Or that's how I justified everything before I learned that Rick had brought a gun to school, ready to look at the school as a battle field and the students as the enemy army. Everyone probably had a bulls eye on their forehead and he would just aim and shoot at them. I always look back on that and feel the utmost guilt. I could've maybe talked him out of it, you know? I'd tell him that everything was just going to get better although I had no idea whether or not it would. I'd tell him anything he wanted to hear. Maybe then, Jimmy's basketball career would still be flourishing. Maybe then, Sean wouldn't have ever run off to Wasega. Maybe then, Emma wouldn't have saught comfort in the back of a dingy van in the Ravine. Maybe then, Rick would still be alive. Maybe he would've transferred to another school. I'd miss him, sure. But I wouldn't have this internal battle with myself. Some days, I go to the comic book store and see something that I'd buy and take to Rick. We'd read it and over analyze it, pick it apart and be the author's best and worst critic. Some days, I look at Jimmy when he's over my house. I just wonder how the hell Rick could've been so over the edge that he just caused all of this wreckage.

The world right now just seems unjust, unfair, and a total war zone. Everyone's a casualty in one form or another. Adolescence is a battle that you have to fight to stay alive in. Rick lost his life during it. As did JT.

I feel violently ill when I think of JT. The reality of it all is continually smothering me. I'm not Liberty. I'm not made of stone. No guy wants to admit that they've cried over anything. I guess I have nothing to lose which makes it more liberating. Being at his funeral is just something I can't handle. I can't handle looking at the coffin at the front of the room. Inside of that coffin is JT's body. His body. His body is just a paper weight now. It's something that has no value. It's so fucked up that one day, he was here. He was laughing. He was vibrant. He was my best friend. He was the best friend I'd play video games with and talk girls with. He was the guy who I couldn't help but hate sometimes because I knew I could never be witty and popular like him. I was me and he was him. We completed one another. We always, no matter what, found our way back to each other. Now he's just serving the coffin's purpose and why it exists. There's no life, there's nothing. JT's practically nothing.

It's so fucked up.

The guy lost his life on account of a stupid school rivalry. How messed up is that? The wreckage of school rivalries is usually a stolen mascot or a trashed locker room. It's always something that can be replaced. It's not a human life. The outcome doesn't fit the crime. You don't plug in the numbers to that equation and get a loss of human life. That doesn't even make sense. I don't get how someone could even justify sticking a knife in another person. I don't get how killing someone is going to just solve anything. They always teach us in history that war is for a reason and that the destruction was for a purpose. So the loss of human life is just a little price to pay for the greater good? How does that even make sense? They're people. Every casualty is a person. A person with a life. A person with a heart. A person with people that they reach out and touch every day of their lives. Then that person's not there anymore because they were the price that was paid?

I can't believe it when they tell me it's going to get better. I'm down two friends that succumbed to tragedy. I lost a good friend and someone who was and will always be my other half. A life without JT doesn't feel like a life at all. I've only endured a mere few days of it. How am I supposed to go through the rest of my life without my best friend? How am I supposed to go to his grave in the future? JT's not going to be underneath all of that dirt and resting in that coffin. It'll just be his body. It was so heartless of me to realize that while Rick dying was tragic and will always be a part of me, that I could survive it. I could see that light at the end of the tunnel. When it comes to JT, I can't see the end in sight. I can't see the answer to the equation.

My stomach turns. I'm supposed to be giving a eulogy. I'm supposed to compact everything that was JT's life into a few mere minutes. That wouldn't even begin to scratch the surface. I can't just summarize my best friend. How can someone do that to any human being? I glance across the room. I see JT's grandmother, so disturbed and distraught by the fact that she's alive and has to bury her own grandson. I see Liberty, almost like a statue in the storm. The rain beats down and the wind blows but she just sits there, almost unaffected. I see Mia and her oh so tragic and stupid crocodile tears. So overly dramatic. I look at her and I pray that she won't be able to live with herself. She's the reason that all of this has happened. She set all of this in motion. I hope the guilt overwhelms her.

The nausea overwhelms me and I struggle to get up and make my way out of the funeral home. I don't want to even consider the possibility and people looking at me and shaking their heads at the guy who walks out of his best friend's funeral. Once outside, the harsh reality of the outside world hits me. My life doesn't end with JT's. I have to live my life every day and have this aching in me, this hole in me. I'm feeling crushed. I can't breathe.

So, I just throw up onto the grass. I wonder how many people are so consumed and overwhelmed that they come out here and just vomit casually onto the grass like I just did. My throat feels like an inferno as I wipe my mouth with my hand. Eating's been on the back burner for the past few days, so it's not like there was a lot of anything in my stomach coupled with the acid. My best friend is dead and I just threw up at his funeral.

How is everything supposed to get better?


End file.
